Flowers in my lungs
by morporkianhobbit
Summary: Jim knows that his soulmate is reckless. He knows that his soulmate is dangerous. He knows that his soulmate is an idiot. And he knows that he will make his soulmate pay for every flower that has grown on his skin. [MorMor - OS - Soulmates AU]


This is a soulmate AU for the ship MorMor, exploring the childhood and their lives up to their first meeting. Beware the feels.

Many thanks to my beta Hibernia1 for her help and her corrections.

Content warnings: violence, war, school bullying, panic attack, beating up, knife wound, self harm, transphobia. This is not a happy fic, you are warned.

**Flowers in my lungs**

The first time the flowers pierced his skin, Jim was caught off guard. He hadn't expected it to hurt that much.

"Don't complain," his father replied. "It hurts you less than it hurts him."

Jim had plucked the violet that had bloomed on his knee, then he went to curl up in a corner. His soulmate had probably scratched himself by falling. These were things that happened. The pain was bearable - after all, it was only a ghost of what the other kid had to endure. It was mostly the surprise that had hurt him. He was three years old; children were usually older the first time they shared an injury with their soulmate. Jim looked up to the sky through the dirty glass of his bedroom window, and thought of that other child, perhaps on the other side of the world, who was looking at the same sky. He rubbed his bruised knee distractedly. He hoped his soulmate wasn't in too much pain.

He hid the violet between the pages of a book in the house's small library. Then he forgot about it.

Flowers grew more often on Jim's skin than on that of his classmates. He had wondered what kind of life his soulmate was leading, to hurt himself so often. He was wondering if he was thinking about him, like Jim did every time he got hurt.

Tiny violets grew on his arms and legs, on his chest, on his back, and wilted before they could bloom. Although they hurt at first, now they only came with an unpleasant tingling sensation. He knew, by observing other people, that these tiny flowers were blows, bruises, small cuts, wounds that did not cause blood to spill.

Sometimes, entire bouquets of violets exploded in his mouth, in his nostrils or on his face. The echo of pain was overshadowed by the anger that immediately took over Jim's mind. He would have been hard pressed to say whether this anger was directed at the things or people who hurt his soulmate, at him who made Jim suffer in return, or at the children who laughed when they saw him throw up purple petals while choking on his tears.

No one had told him that some flowers stayed forever. Jim was eight years old, and he was sitting at the bottom of his tiny bathtub, furiously scrubbing at the skin of his belly. The scouring pad tore off his reddened skin by small flakes, but the tiny impression of a vibrant violet did not disappear. Eventually it became blurred by the tears of rage and pain that filled the child's eyes. The only thing that comforted him, in a cold and sadistic way, was to know that the other kid would also feel this reddened and irritated skin. The fact that his soulmate had already suffered to give him this tattoo didn't even cross his mind.

It was only a few days later that he gathered up the courage to open up to his mother.

"The flowers that grow when my soulmate gets hurt... is it possible they stay?"

His mother looked at him sadly from the kitchen table where she was cutting up vegetables for the family's dinner.

"It happens, poppet. If your soulmate gets a scar, then so do you. It stays, like a tattoo."

She set her knife down on the board and rolled her right sleeve almost up to her shoulder, before reaching out her arm. White chamomile petals were inked into her diaphanous skin, symbols of old wounds that someone else had received. Jim examined them for a few moments, before turning his heels and going to lock himself in his room without saying a word. He had often seen his father with his arms bare. There weren't any scars.

So it was like that, he would keep that small violet forever. He tried to convince himself that it was better to have a flower than a scar. He wasn't sure he believed himself.

Jim was thirteen years old when he began to realize that something was wrong with him. Clearly his classmates had understood this a long time ago - he had always been the target of laughter, mockery, pointed fingers, small everyday violence. He had grown accustomed to these, they almost didn't hurt anymore. But to feel like he was a stranger, like he was trapped inside his own body, was something else entirely. It was an insidious and treacherous feeling, which crept into the nooks and crannies of his mind that had already been hardened by cold years. He hated the long, brown, almost black hair that fell before his eyes, which the children at school pulled. He hated his chest, which was starting to swell, take uncomfortable shapes and attract the attention of the boys. He hated that slender voice that lacked authority and that no one took seriously. He hated his name, which stabbed him in the guts every time he heard it. He hated this body that wasn't his and in which he was stuck. He hated the flowers and the pain, which reminded him that he was living someone else's life at the same time as his own, and neither seemed to be more pleasant than the other. But the pain, at least, he could reclaim it, control it. He smiled every time he looked at the basic bandages around his forearms, with a cruel and unhappy grin. These flowers, he thought as he pictured his soulmate, you will keep them for a long time.

The beating was a hard but important lesson. That day, Jim learned that if there was a problem with someone, it wasn't with him. And that he couldn't trust anyone.

"Hey, guys! Did you hear that? Jill thinks she's a boy!"

The herd of teenage boys had burst out with a raucous laugh - or rather what they imagined to be a raucous laugh, but in children between the ages of eleven and fifteen, it was more of a hysterical and ridiculous giggling. They were all gathered around Carl. He was the one who was laughing the loudest.

"Let's see if you're a boy, kid. Boys know how to fight."

That day, Jim learned that love and feelings were worthless, that trust was a lie, and that secrets were meant to be kept to himself. But above all, he concluded that there was nothing wrong with him. He was exactly who he was meant to be, and the problem was not his weird twisted mind, but theirs, too narrow. Bullies attacked weaklings, and those they were afraid of. And Jim was certainly not a weakling.

The event was also a lesson for Carl's friends. Not for Carl himself. He would no longer have the opportunity to learn lessons.

Only after he had run away from his hometown, never to return again, did Jim spare a single thought for his soulmate. Wherever he was, he must have felt the echoes of the lesson Jim had just undergone. Much good may it do him. If Jim ever met him, he would continue his path without further ado. If he was a mentor, Jim would do without him, he could very well learn on his own. A loyal friend? There was no such thing. A lover? Jim clenched his fists. No. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

The years went by, and Jim employed them to become himself. A self forged in pain, disillusions and cynicism. Crime was a preordained path for him. His cold and calculating genius could never be put at the service of the common good: it had long since abandoned him, and Jim was never generous to anyone - or anything - who had trampled on him since his early childhood.

Jim's resolution did not waver, but it changed over time. After his escape, he didn't get any physical injuries anymore, and the mental injuries would not leave any trace on his soulmate. Jim hated the world for that, as he hated it for many other things. Why should he have to suffer his own traumas alone, when that man about whom he knew nothing shared with him every blow, every wound, every drop of blood spilled? And he didn't hold back on that. If in his childhood the purple flowers appeared suddenly and painfully, at least they remained occasional. Now it was almost every day that a violet or ten pierced his skin. Sometimes they were whole bouquets. On those days, Jim clenched his teeth and swallowed tears and pain, silently cursing that fool who put his life in danger every day. He would tear the flowers off in silence and throw them away.

At least the flowers taught him two things. Firstly, that this man travelled a lot. In his childhood, violets only grew during the day, when Jim himself was up, a sign that his soulmate lived on the same continent. Nowadays, they occurred mainly at night, disturbing his sleep or waking him up with a start; but sometimes also during the day. Secondly, that he had a dangerous occupation. Jim would bet on a soldier, or a criminal who was particularly incapable of staying under the radar. In either case, it showed a spirit of boundless stupidity. He wondered why nature had decided that such a moron should be his soulmate.

It was rare, but sometimes the pain became too much for him to do anything but curl up in a corner and wait. At first, he would pray that the other would hurry up and die and leave him in peace. Then he prayed that he would stay alive, that no one would steal his last breath. That one belonged to Jim. Jim would find him, force him to explain himself, then make him pay for all the pain he had caused him. In a slow way, that wouldn't cause any bloodshed.

Of course, many other tattoos had joined the solitary flower on his belly. There was a dozen of them, small and discreet, on his back, arms and legs. The one across his torso was much wider - three thin lines of purple flowers, long and perfectly defined, crossing the two very real scars running across his chest. It had deprived him of all his strength for two full days, while flowers bloomed and wilted relentlessly on his chest. Two other lines of flowers decorated his face. Every morning, he spent hours in front of the mirror, covering them up with makeup, while cursing his soulmate.

Actually, he wouldn't kill that man. He would make him pay, yes. But he intended to take as much advantage as possible of this tool that nature offered him. That complete stranger was supposed to be made for him. Well, he'd use him. He knew he had earned it.

The first flower that grew on Sebastian's skin was a Colombian lily, like all the others that followed. His tutor took the opportunity to tell him about this plant, where it grew, at what time of year, and why it was also called a tiger lily. At five years old, Sebastian didn't care that the flower that had just grown on his hand was a plant of the order of liliales, native to Canada. He was only thinking about the nasty cut his soulmate must have gotten. He found it sad that the first contact he had with that person was through pain. Turning the flower between his fingers, he prayed to heaven that the child who had just been hurt would heal quickly. The pain didn't really bother him. Only the irony of that first contact.

Sebastian had a good resistance to pain. And if he hadn't, he would have quickly acquired it. His father had clear opinions on how to raise a child: let tutors and teachers take care of knowledge, and teach him good manners by kicking his arse - or beating him with a belt, or a stick, or anything else he could get his hands on.

The first few times, Sebastian thought with pain and sympathy of his soulmate, with whom he shared against his will the blows from his father. Sebastian didn't care about behaving well, but he was trying not to make someone who hadn't asked for anything suffer through these corrections. But over time, he learned that his father didn't need a reason to hit him, and Sebastian eventually forgot about that complete stranger who received flowers when he was receiving blows. All that mattered when his father hit him, was to protect himself to minimize the damage, try to ignore the pain, and then tend to his wounds alone in a corner. His tutors were not there to take care of his body, only his mind, and his mother was as present as his father was loving.

Lily growths were rare, and when they occurred, Sebastian thought of that child who lived far from him, and who seemed to have a calmer life than his own. He hoped that they were happy, and that they would agree to share some of that happiness with him when the two met.

To let off steam, Sebastian would provoke other kids to fight, on the rare occasions when he was allowed to see children his own age. Sebastian was taller and stronger than the others, and won almost every time. These battles were short moments when he felt powerful, when he forgot his weakness under the blows of his father, when pain was synonymous with glory. He wore his first scar like a medal: he was ten years old, and a street urchin had pulled out a small knife during a fist fight and stabbed it into his stomach. The wound was superficial, and healed quickly, leaving only a white line on his abdomen. He knew that the stab wound would also leave a mark on his soulmate's skin. He silently apologized to them, then moved on.

As time went on and the years passed, his father seemed to gradually forget about his existence. He was shipped off to Eton to study, and Sebastian was relieved that he no longer had to live in the family home. He continued to fight with the other teenagers, but as he was a good student, the teachers simply told him off without ever taking any real action.

He was fifteen years old when flower growths suddenly became more frequent, and especially more precise. The first time he felt a row of lilies blooming across his forearm, he was more surprised than scared. How could they grow in such an orderly manner? They didn't even really hurt, he only felt a strange tingling sensation. He reviewed all the ways of hurting oneself that he could imagine, every type of injuries. The realization of what had just happened hurt him much more than the flowers themselves. From that moment on, the rows of lilies appeared regularly on his arms and sometimes his legs, leaving behind them tattoos of orange petal, like a well-ordered flowerbed. Sebastian stopped wearing short-sleeved clothes, and wondered if his soulmate was doing this to punish him for all the injuries he had given them.

He eventually got used to the lines of flower, but nothing had prepared him for the sudden growth of lilies that occurred one day in the middle of a Latin class. A bouquet bloomed on his ribs, spreading under his shirt, and the pain that accompanied it almost knocked him to the ground. The flowers had only made rare appearances in the last years, and the recent cuts caused only unpleasant tingling or slight pain. But this time, the flowers continued to grow relentlessly all over his body as he tried with difficulty to get up, under the shocked eyes of his classmates.

He was used to the pain. It had been with him since he was a child. But he was certain that neither his spinning head, nor his numb limbs, nor his sudden shortness of breath and nor, especially, the feeling of terror and helplessness that crushed his chest came from his soulmate. He felt as if he was reliving the corrections his father used to inflict on him, but worse this time, without being able to do anything to protect himself. His terrified empathy for the person who was actually being beaten mixed with his childhood fears and memories of the blows, and immobilized him completely. He had to be carried to the school infirmary, spilling bright orange petals all the way there.

There, he was told that he had had a panic attack, that it was common when something bad happened to one's soulmate, that he would get better very quickly, that it would not happen again. Sebastian simply nodded and shivered under his blanket, and said nothing about his certainty that it would happen again.

He wondered what might have happened to his soulmate. No tattooed scars remained, and the cuts stopped. He thought for a moment that they were dead, but finally small benign flowers assured him the opposite, and life resumed as before - Sebastian accumulating wounds, the stranger simply sending him a few lilies from time to time.

Sebastian no longer thought about his soulmate when he was fighting other teenagers. He no longer thought about them when he hurt himself when tripping or exploring the school at night. Nor when he grew up and the injuries became more serious. He had one apologetic thought for them, in passing, when he joined the army. He didn't know if he would ever meet them - probably not, now that he had enlisted. But if he died, at least they would be permanently rid of all the wounds he was giving them. Did the tattoos stay after the death of a soulmate? Sebastian had never thought to ask the question. It was probably an indiscreet question, anyway.

The war gave him new scars, which he collected like medals. He became the best sniper in his battalion, and according to rumours the best in the entire army stationed in India. Sebastian had no doubt that this was true. He had confidence in his abilities. Scars also accumulated on his soul and heart. One can't survive in the army without turning oneself into a weapon, and a weapon doesn't think, it has no feelings. In any case, that's what his companions and superiors said about Sebastian. And that's what he kept repeating to himself, and what he believed. That was the most important thing. He no longer thought of the flowers that the far away stranger received every time his blood was spilled. Although he couldn't help but think of them when tiger lilies sometimes bloomed on his own skin; but it was rare enough not to keep him from his task. He had hidden his sympathy and apologies for his soulmate in a coffer at the bottom of his heart, and it was covered with locks, chains and scars.

Unfortunately, neither the scars nor the army had managed to make him lose his free will, his rebellious spirit or, above all, his sense of honour that was twisted and stunted, but nevertheless as solid as a block of steel. So, when members of his battalion conspired to give away vital information to the enemy, their colonel gave them a first warning, but not a second, and he dealt out justice himself. The court-martial found no evidence of the treason, but it did of the murders. Sebastian avoided imprisonment only thanks to his rank, his reputation, and his father's influence. He would have rather rotted in a cell than see his begetter save his arse, but he was not given a choice. So he returned to London, disgraced, disowned, his self-esteem in pieces but his will stronger than ever. If he was to be a pariah, he might as well be a real pariah. Others than the British army might need his talents, and if the army had trampled him underfoot like some trash that it didn't want to touch, then he would sell himself to its enemies.

For Sebastian too, the path to crime was preordained. And the underworld may be vast and spread its tentacles everywhere, but in the end all roads lead to Moriarty.

Jim Moriarty was walking briskly down the hallway with white, bare walls in the basement of his HQ. Summer, his second, followed in his wake, struggling not to be left behind.

"He says nothing, sir, he refuses to say a word," she explained. "Not even his name. We haven't yet moved to harsher methods, we were waiting for you to give the order, I..."

"He attempted to kill me," Jim exclaimed, stopping sharply in the middle of the corridor and forcing Summer to make an emergency stop. "My orders in this case are quite clear!"

"Yes, sir, but I..."

She hesitated for a moment under the murderous gaze of her employer, then plucked up her courage to explain:

"I thought you might want to see him before he's completely out of it, Sir."

Moriarty's dark eyes stared at her for just a few seconds too long to be comfortable. Then he turned on his heels and continued on his way at the same pace.

Some idiot had tried to murder him again. It had not been very frequent lately, most of his customers and competitors had learned that he was, firstly: untouchable and secondly: very resentful. But every now and then there was always a fool to think that they could slip past his guard where so many others had failed, and remove him from the London chessboard. Pffft. So presumptuous. Even if someone were to succeed in ending his life, his network would continue to function without him. Cut off the head, ten grow back. You could kill Jim, but not Moriarty.

This one didn't even get close to him… Actually, he wouldn't have needed it. Jim hated having to admit it, but the man had nearly managed to off him. He had been incredibly lucky that the client with whom he was making a deal placed himself between him and the window at the very moment the bullet shattered it. As for the building from which the sniper had fired, Moriarty had access to its entire surveillance system, like for all the surrounding buildings - a precaution he took before any major meeting, and which had borne fruit since his men had immediately located and intercepted the shooter.

The news should have made him happy, as the shooter would lead him to the employer, and he hated leaving an offence unpunished. Getting rid of a troublemaker would set an example for others. And the attempts on his life, although often badly planned and never completed, at least proved to him that he was important to his competitors. But of course, the violets had to choose that particular day to start growing in bouquets, and even groves, on his bruised skin, sending needles of second-hand pain through his whole body, and plunging his mind into a dark and murderous mood. He needed to take it out on someone. No luck for the aspiring murderer; but in any case, he had chosen his fate at the same time as his target.

The shooter was now in front of him, in an overly lit room in the basement under the HQ. Jim examined him with a scornful eye. He was already in a sorry state, slouched on the chair to which he was firmly tied, his head swaying against his chest to protect his eyes from the burning white glow of the neon lights. Strands of dirty blond hair fell like a curtain in front of his face, and his bare shoulders were covered with bruises and cuts. Jim knew his face was too, and he had confirmation when one of the two henchmen in the room pulled on the man's hair, jerking his head back sharply, his chin pointed in the air and his neck exposed.

The man was surely very handsome under all that blood, bruises and sweat, Jim thought as he dissected him with his gaze. He had a square and well-defined jaw, thick red lips - although that was probably the result of the beating he had received - and his eyes...

His bright blue eyes clashed with his dirty and mistreated face. They shone with a fierce, rebellious glint, but not one of anger or hatred. Jim was used to having prisoners insult him, stand up to him, or try to spit in his face. It only made their end slower and more painful. Those eyes did not express any of that. It was rather a quiet but certain resignation. They were the eyes of someone who didn't care about the beatings and wounds, someone who had nothing more to lose and who knew it, someone who was having fun watching bullies try to snatch bits of information from him, in vain.

Jim returned his gaze.

_I will break you, in the end_, he thought. _I always do._

He approached the prisoner, close enough to invade his personal space, which had already been shattered by the interrogation anyway, but far enough away to show that he didn't want to touch something as dirty and insignificant as him.

"So you thought it was a good idea to try to murder me, did you?"

At close range, he could see the features of the man's face better. High cheekbones, a broad forehead wrinkled by the lines of age and trauma, and always those blue eyes shining with a calm and quiet resolution, almost mocking him. Jim hated being mocked, especially by someone in an inferior position.

"Well, your employer only sent you to the cemetery. He should have known we would catch you. Dozens of morons have tried before you, and they all met the same end."

He smelled like blood, sweat and tobacco, with a touch of metal - gunpowder, no doubt. A foul smell, but one that reflected very well the kind of person he was. Under the dried blood Jim could make out older cuts, scars... He held back the reflex gesture of reaching out to his own face, where his tattoos were hidden by a thick layer of makeup. He leaned a little closer to the prisoner's swollen face. His breath stroked the man's tanned skin like that of a predator holding its prey, while he added:

"Unless you got that idea on your own. In which case you're either suicidal or really very stupid."

"As stupid as someone standing right in front of a non-reinforced bay window without a bulletproof vest?"

Jim froze. He couldn't see the prisoner's mocking smile, but he could hear it in his voice. If he was to believe Summer, those were the first words the man had said since he had been here.

How could he know he didn't have a vest?

Jim straightened up, shot a meaningful glance to one of the two henchmen, and stepped back a few feet. The man approached with a heavy step, grabbed a handful of the prisoner's hair, and swung a right into his cheekbone.

Jim grimaced as a painful and familiar tingle started. He raised his hand to pluck the flower that had just appeared...

On his cheekbone.

He shot a dumbstruck look at the man tied to the chair. He was short of breath, and the blow had made him groan, but the damn smile was still there. Fresh blood was pearling on his face and trickling gently down his cheek.

By squinting his eyes, Jim could make out the scars under the dirt, the dried blood and the recent wounds. He had one across the bridge of his nose, and another one that went down from his eyebrow to the middle of his cheek. The prisoner's expression changed; he seemed uncomfortable with the sudden examination he was under, but it might as well have been because of the fetters that held him to the chair stuck to the ground, or because of the multiple injuries that covered his body.

Jim reached his hand behind his back to the second henchman standing behind him, next to Summer.

"Jordan, your knife."

The man stared at the back of his boss's head, surprised by the request. He wasn't going to...

"YOUR KNIFE!"

Jordan shrugged internally and laid the folded weapon in Jim's outstretched hand. It was unusual to say the least, but if the boss wanted to butcher up a moron who had tried to take him down, he certainly wasn't the one who would try to stop him.

The object made a sinister clicking sound as Jim unfolded the blade. For a moment he observed the reflections of the cold light on the metal, then turned his gaze back to Sebastian. The latter had regained his air of amused resignation, and did not seem at all afraid of being cut in two. He was much more surprised when Moriarty looked down at his own hand and cut a clear X into his palm. Panic began to grow when he felt a handful of crumpled petals popping into the palm of his right hand, tied in the back to the chair. Moriarty couldn't see them, but Sebastian knew he knew.

"Untie his hands," Jim ordered in a voice far too inexpressive to really hide anything.

Sebastian did not take his eyes off his tormentor as the man named Jordan walked around his chair and untied the fetters that held his wrists - not the others, of course, and Sebastian would not have time to undo them himself before he got his brains shot out. He didn't even think about it.

Under Jim's dark and penetrating gaze, he could almost feel the locks and chains he had placed on his heart breaking one by one and falling to dust, and the feelings, fear and mostly regret rising like bubbles to the surface. He waited for Jordan to walk away, then stretched his hands out in front of him, palms up. Two clear lines of tiger lilies were growing crosswise in his right hand, and thin rows of orange flowers were tattooed on his forearms.

Jim stood still, motionless, frozen on the spot and his eyes fixed on Sebastian's offered palms, for seconds that stretched like centuries. The prisoner watched his face gradually decompose, his mask of confident calm fall to pieces. Jim finally raised his wide dark eyes, plunging his gaze into the infinite blue of Sebastian's.

"Out!" he barked in a voice that trembled slightly.

The guards and Summer looked at each other. He couldn't be talking to the prisoner, he was tied up, so...

"I said..."

They were all already on the doorstep when the scream filled the room.

"**_OUT!_**"

The heavy door slammed like a sentence, leaving them both alone.

Jim hadn't turned around when he heard the noise, he hadn't even flinched. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on Sebastian.

There were thousands of things he wanted to say to his soulmate. Millions of ways he had pictured their first conversation. Billions of first words he had imagined shouting at him.

He...

"I'm sorry."

Jim froze. He was already motionless, but his heart stopped beating, and his breathing halted.

This wasn't planned. This was not the way it was supposed to happen.

"What? For trying to kill me?"

"No. Well, yes. This is not how I wanted things to go, it shouldn't have happened this way. But what I mean is… I'm sorry. For everything."

Sebastian made no attempt to free himself or even to move, except for his hands, which were now resting on his lap. He continued to hold Jim's gaze, and the criminal could see pain in his eyes. A pain that wasn't for Sebastian himself.

"I'm sorry I lived my life without thinking about yours. There came a time when I had to make a choice, and I chose myself. I... I did my best to forget that you existed. I hope you can forgive me one day..."

Fury began to bubble up in Jim's chest. He clenched his fists, the metal handle of the knife painfully imprinting its shape into his palm. It wasn't supposed to go like this. What right did that man have, after all these years, to swan in, apologize, try to win his sympathy, as if he were the victim? As if he were the one who had had a life full of pain, insults and sabotage, leading him to become a monster to protect himself? As if he were the one who had to suffer the wounds of another throughout his life in addition to his own, invisible and intangible?

There were too many things he wanted to shout at him, too many reproaches he wanted to throw at his stupid face, but where to start? With what...

"Your name."

The prisoner stared at him with unreadable eyes, much too blue in this dirty face lit by a blinding light.

"Sebastian. Sebastian Moran."

He didn't return the question, but his eyes spoke for him. Jim was trying to convince himself that it was a good thing he recognized his authority, his position of power, but in truth Sebastian's respect and sudden deference were infuriating. He should not answer his questions easily. He should not open up, he should continue to stand up to him...

Since when did Jim Moriarty allow anyone to stand up to him? Or even wanted it?

"Jim," he spat out in a condescending tone.

Sebastian must already know his last name. He nodded, confirming the criminal's assumption.

"I would never have tried to kill you if I had known who you were."

He shouldn't have tried to kill him even just knowing he was Moriarty, but Sebastian didn't seem to value his own life very much.

"I don't know my client's name, but he calls himself the Fly. Apparently, he worked with you, but it didn't go well. That's all I know."

So it was that easy to get Sebastian Moran to talk, after all?

"I can try to help you find him, if..."

"SHUT UP!"

The scream cut off Sebastian's speech. The anger that had been boiling in Jim for a long time was now overflowing, and his eyes looked like two black holes that could have swallowed him in an instant.

"I don't care about that fool. He's insignificant. But you... YOU..."

With a raging gesture, he scratched through the layer of make-up that covered his cheek, revealing the purple flowers engraved in his skin, exactly where Sebastian had his scars.

"You have been killing me for years, you hurt me, you hit me, you go through life like a punching bag without worrying about the consequences, without thinking that the other person you're doing this to has his own life to survive, his own traumas and wounds to bear... then you give me an "I'm sorry" and you hope that I'll forgive you? That I'm going to put all the pain behind me, that I'm going to forget all the days I spent curled up into a ball in a corner hoping that you'll stop being shot at, or butchered, or hit..."

Jim's hands were flying in all directions, mimicking the blows he had received, while his face deformed to follow the angry words he was spitting out. He barely noticed the tears that were stinging his eyes, but Sebastian didn't miss them.

"I didn't inflict these wounds on you, Jim."

The smaller man gave him an incredulous look.

"You think I wanted to get my arse beaten at every street corner?" the sniper continued. "Or to be whipped by my father? Or by your henchmen? I suffered them as much as you did, these blows, more than you, even. You got flowers and dulled pain. I got blood and scars."

Jim opened his mouth to reply, but Sebastian didn't give him time.

"All the wounds I have given you, I have suffered them just like you. And you? Self-mutilation and surgical operations. Choices. That _you_ made."

The tip of the knife Jim was still holding was suddenly pressed under Sebastian's chin, forcing him to raise his head. He didn't look away from the criminal, challenging him silently to finish this. Let's see if he was able to make that choice too.

"The wounds I received, Sebastian," the criminal snarled in a voice colder than deep space, "I kept them to myself. Otherwise, your soul would be covered in flowers just like my skin. And I didn't get a _choice_."

Jim's face was only a few inches from Sebastian's, who still held his gaze. They remained facing each other while the seconds ticked around them. Then Jim stood up, moved the knife away from the sniper's throat and walked a few steps back into the room.

"Now that I have found you, I don't intend to let go of you," he said in a perfectly controlled tone. "This stupid concept of soulmates better work."

"Excuse me?"

Sebastian raised an interrogating eyebrow. Jim turned around and looked at him like he was a complete moron.

"You're supposed to be made for me," he explained in an impatient voice. "To help me become the best version of myself. To… better me."

He spit the word out as if he thought the idea was stupid, and gave Sebastian a condescending look. The latter had regained his calm and amused expression, but nevertheless he seemed intrigued by Jim's comments.

"You are aware that the concept of soulmates is supposed to be reciprocal, aren't you?"

"Supposed," Jim replied. "But I don't normally comply with the rules."

"These are not the kind of rules you can break."

"You underestimate me, Sebastian," Jim replied in a cold and impatient voice. "In order for me to bring anything to you, I would first need to value your life in any way, which I do not. You're just a tool, nothing more. And I intend to make the most out of all the injuries I had to endure before I found you."

Sebastian gave a light chuckle, which quickly turned into a bloodied coughing spell. Jim turned to him and stared at him.

"So... I am a tool, absolutely unique and made for you, for which you have suffered traumatic injuries... but I have no value in your eyes?"

Jim frowned. That idiot was way too perceptive. Well, at least it meant he wouldn't get bored by his side.

Why had he thought "by his side" as if it was obvious?

Why had his heart warmed up thinking that Sebastian wouldn't be too unpleasant to be around?

No... would be interesting to be around.

Jim slammed the door to the foreign thoughts that were beginning to creep into his mind, and walked fast towards the room's door, which he opened with an abrupt gesture. Summer and the two henchmen were waiting in the hallway, their faces consumed by anxiety and confusion. Summer's eyes shone a little brighter when she realized that her boss was still alive, and surprisingly, that the prisoner was still tied up.

"Untie him, heal him, make sure he's presentable," Jim ordered his henchmen dryly. "Find him quarters to live in and some clothes that are not torn or bloodstained. And have him brought to my office at six o'clock sharp. Not a minute later."

He didn't even wait for confirmation, before dropping the knife on the ground and walking away into the hallway with big strides. The guards looked at each other, then looked at Summer. The woman hesitated only a moment before barking:

"You heard him! Come on, hurry up!"

Sebastian sat in his chair, still tied up, and watched them busy themselves with an amused smile on his lips. He didn't know what he had landed into, but the collaboration with Jim Moriarty was going to be full of interesting developments.


End file.
